The Blood Bond - My first novel!

This ripping yarn now available in print and download versions...  

'The Blood Bond' novel started life when director Michael Biehn wanted to rewrite our original script for the film of the same name. The first version of the story was set in Thailand, and had more of a fantasy angle than the finished screenplay. Michael's version kept most of the central characters, but transposed the story to a fictitious Asian country, Purma, and set the adventure against the backdrop of a civil war.

Like all writers, I experienced some frustrations as Michael and his team of five (five!) writers started restructuring my masterpiece. They made some good changes, some I didn't agree with (which nevertheless worked in the final version of the film). It occurred to me that, if I wrote a novel based on the original version, anyone interested could read it, and run that version of the movie in their heads! (It certainly wouldn't be the first time that the film of a book was very different from the printed version.)

Why not just print the script? Because, unless its written by someone like Quentin, no-one in their right mind actually reads a published script. Also, after years of abandoned efforts, I found I finally had the patience to write a whole novel, start to finish, and that I actually found the process very therapeutic. Being a film producer involves trying to control often uncontrollable elements; the novelist is true master of his domain.

My thanks to the tireless Elizabeth for all her proof reading efforts, and for pushing me to actually finish the damn thing. Also, to the dear, departed Bo Blaylock, now back in the cornfields of Iowa, who did the final spell check and helped set up our on-line sales facility. In the end, though, any errors that remain in the text, factually or typographically, are mine alone!

B&E was created with the goal of making real whatever the imaginations of my partners and I can create. (You can see a list of our current projects in my earlier blog searching, apparently in vain, for fresh interns!)  This is our first publishing venture, to be followed by a second book in the same series, 'Red Dawn Rising', based, again, on the first draft script for the sequel, and my long-awaited follow-up to 'Hong Kong Action Cinema', 'My Life In 36 Chambers', which is an autobiographical look at sam sap luk classic kung fu titles, and what they mean to me. Beyond that, I'm working on 'Kung Fu Master', which will be my take on the Fok Yun-kap/Chen Jun legend,  a kung fu movie in novel form!

I'll have copies of 'The Blood Bond' to sell and sign at my Way of Bey event at Philia on Tuesday the 9th of November (I'm sure you'll all be there!). For those who can't wait (or can't make it), you can download it to you iPad or iPhone at:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-blood-bond/id401046508?mt=11

I hope you find this story as much fun to read as it was to write. Let me know what you think!